The background: The Voluntary Butler Service is the vehicle for Rob Jones, a singer-songwriter from near Birmingham who accompanies himself mostly, with a bit of help from his friends on keyboards and drums, as he plays his self-penned songs on numerous instruments while also using loops (to sing along with his own backing vocals) and various effects pedals. He's a bit of a card, is Jones, evidently fancying himself as a "character", a fact he telegraphs on his MySpace when he lists his band-members as Marc Bolan on bass, Johnny Cash on shakers and backing vocals, Elvis Presley on guitars, James Brown on drums and Roy Orbison on glockenspiel. His songs are equally "cheeky" and "comical", bearing titles such as Tabasco Sole and terrible naff lines full of poetry of the inane/mundane like, "Don't go treating my heart like bagpipes anymore" or "If you were broccoli I'd turn vegetarian for you".

He's a cute indie kid with a weak, insipid voice that cracks on everything but the middle range, but he appears to have mainstream ambitions. His tunes aren't half-bad: low-rent, DIY reproductions of Motown and Spector, like Scouting for Girls fronted by a pissed-up student version of Tony Christie stumbling through a series of barely remembered early-70s chart pop. He quotes from the 80s, too: Pet Shop Boys get a mention on The Eiffel Tower and the BT Tower, and his latest single, Multiplayer, recalls the clod-hopping budget Tamla of 1982 top 10 novelty hit Heartache Avenue by the Maisonettes, all handclaps and harmonies held together by sticky-back plastic. He even does a tinny, weedy cover of Phil Oakey and Giorgio Moroder's synth-pop classic Together In Electric Dreams so ramshackle it sounds as though it might fall apart at any moment.

He evidently aspires to the national-treasure status of a Jarvis and wants to be regarded as a witty, trenchant chronicler of the British condition, but he clearly doesn't have a satirical bone in his body – he's not even Jilted John. He opens Multiplayer with, "I'm gonna get my hair cut even if I have to cut it myself", delivered with staccato force, as though he imagines he's attacking something or other, but really it's just a statement, and it falls flat. There are no droll puns, no ironic juxtapositions, no subtly scathing critiques of human mores and the class system here. But the tune has a certain appeal, as do many of his songs, even if they are a bit spindly and the references to TV chefs and running shoes don't mean anything or go anywhere. Our advice? Stop trying to do everything yourself and find a decent writing partner.

The buzz: "Like a good butler he delivers excellent service with impeccable attention to detail."

The truth: This McCartney (circa Wings' Back to the Egg) desperately needs a Lennon.

Most likely to: Write a song about Gary Rhodes.

Least likely to: Write a song about Gary Gilmore – it wouldn't be parochial and "kitchen-sink" enough.